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Chris Hayes, my morning talk show boyfriend, dedicated an hour of his Saturday show to the Penn State sexual abuse scandal. Hayes is joined by a great panel: The New Yorker writer Rick Hertzberg, University of Texas visiting scholar Victoria M. Defrancesco Soto, former Brooklyn District Attorney and Congresswoman Elizabeth Holtzman, MSNBC political analyst Michael Eric Dyson, and The Nation‘s sports writer Dave Zirin. They look at the way powerful institutions breed this sort of corruption and evil, drawing links with the scandal in the Catholic Church. There are also smart explorations of some of the class and race dynamics at play. The full hour is an important contextualizing of this scandal within some larger systems of power. There’s certainly more to discuss, including about the racial dynamics of the scandal, but this is an important addition to the conversation that I’m glad to see on a mainstream news channel. Check it out:

Boston, MA

Jos Truitt is Executive Director of Development at Feministing. She joined the team in July 2009, became an Editor in August 2011, and Executive Director in September 2013. She writes about a range of topics including transgender issues, abortion access, and media representation. Jos first got involved with organizing when she led a walk out against the Iraq war at her high school, the Boston Arts Academy. She was introduced to the reproductive justice movement while at Hampshire College, where she organized the Civil Liberties and Public Policy Program’s annual reproductive justice conference. She has worked on the National Abortion Federation’s hotline, was a Field Organizer at Choice USA, and has volunteered as a Pro-Choice Clinic Escort. Jos has written for publications including The Guardian, Bilerico, RH Reality Check, Metro Weekly, and the Columbia Journalism Review. She has spoken and trained at numerous national conferences and college campuses about trans issues, reproductive justice, blogging, feminism, and grassroots organizing. Jos completed her MFA in Printmaking at the San Francisco Art Institute in Spring 2013. In her "spare time" she likes to bake and work on projects about mermaids.

Jos Truitt is an Executive Director of Feministing in charge of Development.

There’s something about Cinderella that makes me smile. At the mention of the name, I think of Gus Gus and rats that somehow became cute; Hillary Duff, Chad Michael Murray, and Stiffler’s Mom; and the men’s basketball team at the University of Dayton who stole my heart (and broke my bracket) during last year’s March Madness tournament. I also think of Brandy and Whitney Houston, and one of the best made-for-TV movies ever made. Cinderella means many things to many people, but for me, Cinderella has always been a place I called home.

Growing up in rural Indiana as a queer biracial woman, media gave me something my neighborhood could not: people who looked like me. When the TV adaptation ...

There’s something about Cinderella that makes me smile. At the mention of the name, I think of Gus Gus and rats that somehow became cute; Hillary Duff, Chad Michael Murray, and Stiffler’s Mom; and the men’s basketball ...

That’s what America is. Not stock photos or airbrushed history, or feeble attempts to define some of us as more American than others. We respect the past, but we don’t pine for the past. We don’t fear the future; we grab for it. America is not some fragile thing. We are large, in the words of Whitman, containing multitudes. We are boisterous and diverse and full of energy, perpetually young in spirit. That’s why someone like John Lewis at the ripe old age of 25 could lead a mighty march.

And that’s what the young people here today and listening all across the country must take away from this day. You are America. Unconstrained by habit and convention. Unencumbered by what ...

That’s what America is. Not stock photos or airbrushed history, or feeble attempts to define some of us as more American than others. We respect the past, but we don’t pine for the past. We don’t fear ...

Former NFLer Wade Davis and writer Darnell L. Moore want to change the narrative. More specifically, they want to change the narrative around black people and homophobia. The current narrative describes homophobia among black people as something unique, ubiquitous, and more pervasive than among other racial groups. And whether attributed to religion or other factors, it’s a narrative that has gained currency in our national debates, coming very close to blaming the entire problem of homophobia on black people who hate “the gays.”

Davis and Moore see things differently. They have witnessed first-hand loving affirmation of their identities by black family members and friends, and now they want the rest of us to witness it as ...

Former NFLer Wade Davis and writer Darnell L. Moore want to change the narrative. More specifically, they want to change the narrative around black people and homophobia. The current narrative describes homophobia ...